Funding Higher Education: Increasing Access by Closing the Opportunity
I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a deliberation during Penn State’s “Deliberation Nation” event. In support of my friend Emma, I attended and participated in a deliberation on funding in higher education. The deliberation was quite different from the one I helped conduct, but made for a great experience. It included nearly 20 contributing students and even involved Penn State faculty and staff!
The three optionsĀ
Approach 1 focused on providing free public education. The US currently has approximately 21 million students enrolled in colleges and universities, and the average cost for college is around $19,500. The group conducting the deliberation focused on the benefits and drawbacks of following models of Germany and Finland, providing free tuition for all public colleges and universities. There was an obvious benefit in eliminating student debt; however, drawbacks included the increase in taxes and lessening of degree value.
Approach 2 described a discussion over providing Need-Based assistance. Countries experience economic growth when more college-aged students receive higher education.There are new solutions to the student debt crisis including: a college graduate tax, income-contingent loans, and vouchers. If operating under the current system where students pay for education, the possible strategy to minimize obvious debt would be an introduction of loans based upon post-graduation income.
Approach 3, and also my favorite approach, discussed President Obama’s community college plan. In the State of the Union address, he outlined a plan to make the first two years of community college free o students including guaranteed transfer credits to other institutions an paving the way for less expensive higher education. Drawbacks consists of allocation of taxes and the fact that it only pays for two years of college. It does, however, not involve drastic changes as mentioned in approach one and two.
Points of Consensus & Disagreement
Surprisingly, the deliberation did spark disagreement among people in the group. Often times, the two faculty members spoke out against changing college admissions processes and prices, while students recognized the need for a complete redo of how people approach the higher education system. I was surprised at the difference in point of view between faculty and students, but it just made for a great deliberation. The approach involving the most disagreement was option 1 and the idea of providing free education. Many students liked the idea; however, there was unrest on how to go about obtaining free education and the economic impact it would have on the United States. Students and (even) faculty agreed that option 3, or the method of creating two years of free community college for students was well perceived by all deliberation participants. Seeing as though the majority of people were students who pay a rather high price to attend Penn State, receiving two years of free college is something many wouldn’t turn down.
In all, I greatly enjoyed the deliberation. I always considered the issue of funding in higher education to be problematic and controversial; however, I never knew of any physical supporting evidence. I’m grateful that I chose to attend this deliberation.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.